Spotify filed a complaint against Apple in the EU antitrust court, saying the iPhone maker unfairly limits rivals to its own Apple Music streaming service. In response to that Apple has released a statement which counters Spotify’s claims.

Spotify. Reuters

On Apple Newsroom, the company mentions that Spotify “seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem… without making any contributions to that marketplace.”

Spotify claimed that Apple’s competing music streaming service, Apple Music isn’t subjected to regulations as Spotify. “Apps should be able to compete fairly on the merits, and not based on who owns the App Store,” wrote CEO Daniel Ek. Spotify also claimed that Apple had often hindered updates for the Spotify app and locked it out of Apple services such as Siri.

“Spotify has every right to determine their own business model, but we feel an obligation to respond when Spotify wraps its financial motivations in misleading rhetoric about who we are,” the company wrote.

Apple said that it had approved nearly 200 updates for Spotify and “the only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every app follows.” Apple also responded to Spotify being locked out of its services by saying that Spotify is “deeply integrated” into CarPlay.

Then, Apple responded to the 30 percent charge on in-app digital content by claiming that 84 percent of apps pay nothing which includes Spotify’s ad-supported app.

“Spotify wouldn’t be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem, but now they’re leveraging their scale to avoid contributing to maintaining that ecosystem for the next generation of app entrepreneurs.” said Apple.

Apple then stoked the controversy of Spotify not paying royalties to artists who put content on its platform. “Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. And it’s not just the App Store that they’re trying to squeeze — it’s also artists, musicians and songwriters,” Apple said.

However, Apple has not mentioned anything about if and why Apple Music is not under the same restrictions as Spotify. EU has slapped both Microsoft and Google for promoting Windows and Android respectively to the detriment of other apps. Whether or not Spotify wins the case is another matter, but the battle lines have been drawn between the two companies.

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